LIFE OF VIJAYKRISHNA

enquiry and criticism, prejudice against them lias slowly
died down. We cannot take free enquiry for our guide,
for, however much we laud freethinking and chum to
have acquired it, very few do really possess it. Jesus
Christ said, "Therefore speak I to them in parables ;

because they seeing see not ; and hearing hear not, nrith(T
do they understand." Knowledge cannot be arquimi
without the 'universal and unprejudiced laying ot oneself
open/ The Shastras are the ocean without limit or bottom.
where all streams of knowledge have mot, and we must
draw on them ; for knowledge, in the real sense, is not
acquired, even when there is the practical confronting ot
life, only for want of that unreserved judgment in us. It
is better to obey the Shastras implicitly rather than twist
and pervert them by our misunderstanding. In IHT hook
Isis Unveiled, Madam Blavatsky has said, "But lias Plato
ever been read understandingly by any ot the ^xpoundrr.s
of the classics? The covert allusions of tlir (xm*k
philosopher to esoteric things have manifestly baffled thr
commentators to the last degree. Being thus sworn to
secrecy and religious silence upon abstruse' subjects involv
ing the relations of spirit and matter, they rivalled rurh
other in their ingenious methods for concealing Ihrir n^I
opinions/' Madam Blavatsky also raised the question:

"Should we not first regard the subject from the standpoint
of the ancients before venturing to disparage its tcarhiTs .^
It was in the same spirit that unquestioning obedicin (- to
the Shastras was laid down as a principle of conduct by
the Master.

Vijaykrishna first took his abode at the Asmm on flu-
Janmastami day in 1295 B.S. Not that Vijuvkrisimn
condemned in vehement terms the busy aspects (^ muchm
life, but that the freshness of the early world was mr on

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